Drop everything and download: Quickart
Transform your photos in no time at all
It feels like there are more photo filter apps out there than Beyonce has Instagram followers, but when the makers of Facetune add one to the pile it’s got to be worth a look.
So what does Quickart bring to the table?
WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT, THEN?
While Facetune is all about sprucing up your selfies, Quickart’s got more creative pants on. Choose one of its filters, pick a suitable snap from your camera roll and watch it work its magic. You can easily finetune each one afterwards to get exactly the effect you’re after, and then either save it to your library, upload directly to Instagram or Facebook, or text it to somebody in your phonebook.
IS IT ANY GOOD?
It is. There’s clearly some clever image analysis going on with the filters as some of them will only work if the app can detect a face, sky or other specific feature in the picture you choose. That means the effects are applied in a much more convincing manner than apps that just whack them indiscriminately over the top.
The Glitch Portraits are particularly fun to muck around with, DuoTone is an easy way of jazzing up a plain portrait, and Shatter (pictured) is like looking through your nan’s front door. KaleidoDrop hasn’t quite delivered on its psychedelic promise so far, and Santa’s Skies and Double Love are pretty naff, but perhaps that’s just our cold heart talking.
ANY DOWNSIDES?
A couple of the filters are a bit too Prisma, and that app’s five minutes faded years ago, plus there seem to be some issues with downloading the extra effects that are included as part of some, but a fix for that must only be an update away.
Of the 35 filters it offers, 15 of them are free to use, which is a pretty decent helping compared to some apps of this kind (we’re looking at you, FaceApp), but the pricing to unlock the whole lot feels wildly over the top. A month’s use costs £5.99, you can save a hefty chunk by coughing up £19.49 for a whole year, or lifetime access costs £54.99. That means you’ll have to be pretty taken by its powers before shelling out, especially considering Photoshop Camera does a very similar job for free.
WHERE CAN I GET IT?
Quickart is currently only available for iOS, but a couple of Lightricks’ other apps are also available on Google Play, so keep your eyes peeled for an Android release in the future.
Tom Wiggins
Contributor 
